Dvorak is cool!
History
The Dvorak keyboard layout was developed in the
1920's and 30's by August
Dvorak and William Dealey. They wanted to create a better alternative to
the QWERTY keyboard layout. Unlike the QWERTY layout, the Dvorak layout
was created with the English language in mind.
When the first
practical typewriter was built in
the mid 1800's, the
hammers jammed easily. QWERTY's inventor, C.L. Sholes, arranged the
keyboard so that the letters that tended to jam were separated. Rumor has
it that he may have even intentionally made it more awkward to type certain letter sequences that
tended to cause jams. We're still using pretty much the same layout
today.
Design
The Dvorak layout is designed for the
English language. The most commonly typed letters are on the "home" row
so that you don't have to move your hands around as much. You don't even
have
to move your fingers at all to type many common words, such as
the, then, it, and, on, sane, Santa, taste... Words are divided more
evenly between hands, so you aren't typing whole words with one
hand.
Why You Should Switch
It may take a while, but you can learn to type at least as
fast, if not faster than you did using QWERTY. Since you don't have to
move your hands and fingers as much, you may reduce the chances
of getting repetitive stress injury (RSI). And if you have RSI, it may
help alleviate the symptoms. These are great reasons to switch, but
here's the best reason: it's really funny when someone who
doesn't know Dvorak tries to use your computer.
Setting up Dvorak
The Keyboard
The first thing you will probably want is a keyboard with the Dvorak
layout. There are keyboards you can buy that are hard-wired as
Dvorak keyboards, but I haven't been able to find any that aren't
outrageously expensive. So you'll probably want to re-label the keys on
the keyboard you already have. Use the picture at the top of this
page
as a guide for re-labeling your keyboard. You can find
companies that sell labels, or just get some Avery labels for your
printer and print your own. Note: Your keys might get sticky from
the label glue when they come off.
Alternatively, you can usually take the keys off of your keyboard and
move them to the right spots. I
don't recommend this option if you care about your keyboard.
You can break them pretty easily doing this. You may also find
that the F and J keys are notched or otherwise shaped differently so that
they won't fit in any other spot. On mine, I left those keys
in place intentionally because it's nice to have the little bumps to help
place your hands on the home row. I wrote the correct letters on the keys
with a Sharpie pen and covered it with a few layers of clear nail polish.
It's been 3 or 4 months and they haven't worn off yet.
The Operating System
Unless you bought a hard-wired Dvorak keyboard, you'll also need to set up
your computer to use the Dvorak layout. It's pretty simple to do if you
have Windows. See the "Introducing the Dvorak Keyboard" link below
for instructions for other operating systems.
Windows 95, 98, ME, and NT 4.0
Click Start, Settings, Control Panel. Open
Keyboard. Click the Language tab. Click on English,
then click Properties Click on the keyboard layout selection box
and choose US Dvorak from the list. Then just "OK" your way
out of there.
Note: Your MS-DOS prompt in Win 9x/NT/ME will still be QWERTY unless you
install a separate DOS Dvorak driver. See the "Switching
your computer to Dvorak" link listed below for details.
Windows 2000/XP
Click Start,
Settings, Control Panel, and open Regional Options.
Click the Input Locales tab. Click Details. Under
Installed input locales or Installed Services,
click Add. Then under Keyboard Layout/IME, select United
States- Dvorak. Click OK. Under Default Input
Language, select English (United States)- Dvorak and
hit OK.
You may find that your computer switches between QWERTY and Dvorak
seemingly at random. If you want to make it quit doing that, you should
delete the Qwerty layout. To do this, go back to the Regional
Options control
panel, languages tab, details, select US in
Installed
services and click Remove. You can always add it back later if
you decide to go back to Qwerty. Just follow the instructions above, only
select United States- English under Keyboard
Layout/IME.
Learning Dvorak
The best way to learn Dvorak is to completely
give up QWERTY while you are learning. If you have to type a lot for
school or work, wait until you can take some time (at least a month) to
get up to speed. It can be frustrating at first, but it's well worth the
effort.
To learn Dvorak, I used a simple DOS program called Typing Tutor
International (see link below). The
"Introducing the Dvorak Keyboard" site also has a list of Typing Tutors for Dvorak.
Links
Introducing the
Dvorak Keyboard- An excellent site devoted to all things Dvorak. I
got most of the info on my page from this site.
International Typing
Tutor- This is what I used to learn Dvorak. It's a DOS program.
Unzip it into a folder and run the "Kpdvorak.bat" file.
Tradekeys 2- Re-map your
keyboard keys. If you play Half-Life or
another game
that ignores the
Windows keyboard layout, this is what you've been looking for!
UPDATE! - There's an even easier way to do the
same
thing Tradekeys does.
All you have to do is change one
key in your registry to remap your keyoard.
It's a binary key called Scancode Map located at:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard
Layout\
I guess this only works in Windows 2000 and XP. Use TradeKeys if you're
still using Windows 98.
I have ScanCode Maps for Dvorak and Qwerty in
the following zip file.
Just unzip and double click on the Dvorak key to install it into the
registry. Once you log off or reboot, the new layout will be
active.
Double click on the QWERTY one and reboot or log off to restore
the system to normal QWERTY layout.
ScanCode Keys zip
file
Here is what the two files look like:
Dvorak ScanCode Map.reg-
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard
Layout]
"ScanCode
Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,22,00,00,00,2d,00,30,00,24,00,2e,00,\
11,00,33,00,33,00,11,00,12,00,20,00,34,00,12,00,1b,00,0d,00,0d,00,1b,00,16,\
00,21,00,17,00,22,00,20,00,23,00,1a,00,0c,00,2e,00,17,00,23,00,24,00,14,00,\
25,00,31,00,26,00,35,00,1a,00,30,00,31,00,13,00,18,00,26,00,19,00,2f,00,34,\
00,28,00,10,00,0c,00,28,00,19,00,13,00,18,00,1f,00,1f,00,27,00,2c,00,35,00,\
15,00,14,00,22,00,16,00,25,00,2f,00,10,00,2d,00,21,00,15,00,27,00,2c,00,00,\
00,00,00
Qwerty ScanCode Map.reg-
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard
Layout]
"ScanCode
Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00
If you need more help, you can e-mail me at:
---
Kevin
2/23/2004